Where are We?
I started this blog yesterday but because of the Great Firewall of China, you are just now getting it! Here is yesterday-
We went to bed about 930pm last night. Exhaustion and jet lag were setting in heavy so we had a great dinner with fresh veggies, a long warm shower and gave ourselves permission to land and sleep. So I was no too surprised to wake up about 4am but was pleasantly surprised when I woke up again at 8am and then again at 1030am! I slept hard and good! Feeling refreshed and ready for the day we took a quick stroll out to grab breakfast, blueberry pancakes today with bananas and earl gray!
Checked out of our hotel ready to move towards The Bund and post up at a coffee shop. Our metro pass was expired so we bought a single ticket for a whopping .50cent each to go down one stop. When we arrives, we cue in the address of the costa coffee and head in that direction…. To find ourselves about 10 minutes later back at our hotel! Ha! So, here we go again walking back through the Time Square of Shanghai, backpacks in tote, past the metro station we had just gotten off at and continuing on towards the river front.
We made it! With a window seat and a lemon tea I have set up for people watching. So far, I’ve seen two people rummage in the trash and collect plastic bottles. One trash can a woman had just upchucked in. I’ve seen a fashion that fascinates me and have come to realize how beautiful this culture is. I’ve watched families sit in what I would call Easter hats with flowers, and share an ice cream cone. I’ve watched. I’ve seen a bride and groom stop the traffic in the busiest city in the world to have a photographer capture a special moment of stillness to last a lifetime. I’ve seen people of all ages laugh one of those deep belly laughs, and watched two kids from totally different nationalities play and dance in the square. I no longer feel weird about carrying around a stuffed animal as an adult, and have yet to see anything except what I would consider a HUGE area of people in complete cohesion with each other. It’s beautiful, truly.
I have learned about the “great firewall of china” that blocks websites we take for granted in the states, like google and facebook. I can connect from my phone, but you cannot connect from wifi, needless to say it makes doing work as an American a little difficult! All those files that I uploaded into my google drive and not accessible! What amazes me is that even without facebook, everyone has their nose in their phones. Playing games, texting, sending pictures, it’s incredibly fun as a people watcher to simply sit and observe it all.
On another note, we are here in Shanghai over a holiday weekend. The Dragon Boat Festival was Saturday so while we missed the activity itself, there are a lot of tourist here and Monday is a holiday. This festival commemorates the life and death of a famous Chinese scholar names Chu Yuan. It’s a celebration of dumplings, and dragon boat races plus hanging icons of Zhong Kui, a mythical garden figure, mugwort and calamus, taking long walks, writing spells and wearing perfume bags, fending off evil and creating conditions for well being.
Post Coffee Shop Activities: We wondered our way through the streets of Shanghai and found a quick bite to eat. The adventurous eater that I am had a great bowl of steamed rice and veggies! We headed to the airport, this time on the traditional Metro. It definitely takes longer than the Maglev that we took in to town. A good hour and a half later we made it to the airport, through immigration and to our gate. Our gate right beside the smoking section of the airport which certainly did a number on my throat!
Four hours later, we landed in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam! A relatively short line, but long wait through immigration later and we hopped a cab and landed at our hotel by 2am. I was a little nervous about immigration, I just got my visa the night before and am very grateful for a random hotel employee who printed it for me. The first visa I had, my name was misspelled, I wassn't exactly sure what to do, so I applied again and got the new visa just in the nick of time! So, Welcome to Vietnam!
One of the things I already noticed about this place while coming in last night are the people posted up having, what I will now call, Sidewalk Parties late into the night. Some playing cards, some watching futbol (it is the World Cup btw), and some just having conversation, but again its the laughter that I love!
Can't wait to see what the next few days in this country show us!